page_title: Lugu Lake
section_title: Tribal beliefs about the lake
hierarchical_section_title: Lugu Lake / Tribal beliefs about the lake
caption_attribution_description: Lugu lake marshy land
context_page_description: Lugu Lake is located in the northwest of the Yunnan plateau, with the middle of the lake forming the border between the Ninglang County of Yunnan Province and the Yanyuan County of Sichuan Province. The formation of the lake is thought to have occurred in a geological fault belonging to the geological age of the Late Cenozoic. It is an alpine lake at an elevation of 2,685 metres and is the highest lake in the Yunnan Province. The lake is surrounded by mountains and has five islands, four peninsulas, fourteen bays and seventeen beaches.
  The lake's shores are inhabited by many minority ethnic groups, such as the Mosuo, Norzu, Yi, Pumi and Tibetan. The most numerous of these are the Mosuo people, said to be a sub clan of the Naxi people with ancient family structure considered as "a live fossil for researching the marital development history of Human beings" and "the last quaint Realm of Matriarchy." It is considered as the home of the Moso Tribe However, Mosuo have a separate identity from the Naxis, as it is said that the Chinese used the word Mosuo as a generic term for different ethnic groups, including the Naxi.
  Lugu Lake is called the "mother lake" by the Mosuo people.
context_section_description: The minority tribal community, which resides on the shores of Lugu Lake, have many beliefs and taboos linked to the lake. They hold the lake in sacred reverence and have taboos on killing of animals and felling of trees; and Mosuos, in particular consider animals and trees as innocent. Any body desecrating the lake, as a reparation, has to sacrifice an animal used in tilling and offer the meat to the villagers to eat, contact a “Dingba or hangui (a shaman) to appease the spirits and restore topo-cosmic harmony” and pay obeisance to a Tibetan Buddhist Lama or local Lama. The fisher folk of the lake who practice zoned fishing in the lake believe that a black footed crane (Grus spp.) returning to Lugu Lake ushers prosperity.
  As devout Buddhists, the Mosuo people make a devout annual circumambulation of the lake's shore in a clockwise direction. The prayer walk around the lake involves 35 miles (56 km) of trekking covering the numerous temples and stupas around the lake's shore. Generally, this parikrama is covered in a day. However, a leisurely three-day walk also takes place. The Buddhist influence on the lake's shore is also seen in the form of prayer flags and pyramidal stupas or chortens. The religious trek passes through the Lusoshui village of the Mosuo, farms, orchards, temples in islands, pebble beaches, crosses a fork which directs towards the Yongning, once the capital of Mosuo people. It passes under the shadow of Mount Gama, trees wound with multicoloured cloths, rainbow coloured Buddhist prayer flags with an animal symbol and Buddhist scriptures printed on them, rows of pine trees, pig trough canoes on the lake, wooden houses with upturned roofs (similar to those found in Lijiang city), agricultural land of red soils, white gulls on the lake waters; a change of territory into Sichuan from Yunnan region, pyramidal stupas made with square segments affixed with flat prayer inscribed stones; the Lama Temple (a three tiered red and white Buddhist structure with upturned eaves surrounded by colourful fluttering prayer flags and a 15 feet (4.6 m) fresco with a monk praying amidst scenic surroundings of mountains and clouds, altars, drums brass gongs and so forth) near the Grass Sea. It then passes through the house of the iconic Yang Erche Namu (the Lugu Lake native who is famous for her writings on Musuo and its people and for her singing and artistic talents) known as "China’s Sexiest Woman", and continues through eucalyptus groves and marshes, finally ending the trek at the lake.
caption: Marshy land in the periphery of Lugu Lake
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